The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
A conference call or teleconference is a type of remote communication between three or more people. The parties can communicate over a traditional telephone communication system, a Voice-Over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) based communication system, or other type of communication system.
There are various types of conference call methods. For instance, one person (the “calling party”) can call another to establish a line of communication and can subsequently dial additional phone numbers to add additional persons to the teleconference. In additional embodiments, each participant can call a designated phone number or “conference bridge” to establish the lines of communication. In still additional embodiments, a person can call a single telephone number, which connects to a speaker phone, and multiple other people can participate in the conference call via that speaker phone.
In each of these and other conference call methods, there can be some confusion as to the identity of the speakers at any given time. To clear the confusion, a participant can interrupt the call to ask which participant is speaking; however, this type of interruption can negatively affect the flow of information. On the other hand, if the confusion is not cleared, then the confused participant(s) can be distracted from the subject matter of the call, the confused participant(s) may not be able to respond effectively, or the confusion can otherwise negatively affect the conference call.